Green Printing and Plastic: No Longer Strange Bedfellows

Thanks to the growing popularity of eco-friendly sheetfed presses and the performance of UV inks and coatings on non-absorptive substrates like plastic, offset printers can participate more fully and profitably in markets previously hampered by the inability of offset inks to penetrate the plastic substrate, e.g., POP and display; credit, membership and gift cards; packaging graphics and labels; security and brand protection; etc. On the digital side, UV-curable wide-format ink-jet technologies are exploding in popularity, while digital roll-to-roll, digital cut-sheet and digital offset presses offered by KBA, Kodak, Presstek, Ryobi and Screen, among others, now feature UV options.